Old Friends

this angel, along with 2 others (one for me and my 2 younger sisters) sat above our stockings since around 1962.  My youngest sister didn't "have" one, as she was born 8 years later after the youngest at that time.

I read on lots of blogs accounts of wondering how one will decorate the mantel this year for Christmas, what theme to have for the tree, what colors will one use . . .

I don't have those questions, because I decorate for Christmas the same way every year.  Every year we bring down the boxes from the attic.  Every year the girls tell me I have hung the stockings on the wrong stocking holders and every year they fix them ("Rhiann's goes on the snowflake, Hannah's goes on the angel, don't you remember!??" -- with 4 girls, um, no I don't).

The same stockings, the same decorations -- the two vintage looking stuffed Santa's that my own grandmother gave my two oldest daughters when they were 2 and 4 (they are now 25 and 27), the Rudolf stocking holder that sits on the mantel clock without holding a stocking because it is too tippy, the candy cane striped candles, the faux garland with lights.

And the rest of the house is the same way.  Over 35 years of ornaments accumulated for the tree -- and all (minus some breakage and deterioration) go on the tree, each with a story, a connection, a memory.  A collection of snow globes on the windowsill in the kitchen, the Christmas Village placed always in the same way on the dining room buffet.  As unchanging -- as dependable -- as the Thanksgiving Dinner menu.

Each item, an old friend that we acquaint ourselves with anew each year at the end of November, for a month's visit.

Linking to Sunny Simple Sunday